Here is how you would define a function to do this for a Euclidean distance
measure:
d[x_,A_]:=Min[Map[#.#&[x-#]&,A]];
More generally you could pass a 3rd argument to this function to specify a
function for measuring distance:
d[x_,A_,norm_]:=Min[Map[norm[x,#]&,A]];
Try out this function (the 2 argument version):
n=2;
x=Table[Random[Real,{-1,1}],{2}]
A=Table[Random[Real,{-1,1}],{10},{2}]
d[x,A]
Steve Luttrell
"Piotr Kowalski" <pkowalsk at ibspan.waw.pl> wrote in message
news:d1eblq$ek7$1 at smc.vnet.net...
> Hello,
>
> I would like to compute distance d(x,A) from a point 'x' to a set 'A',
> (all in R^n, where n=2 or n=3) that is:
>
> d(x,A) = min ||x - a|| (forall a in A)
> where: n=2 or n=3,
> x is point in R^n, A is subset of R^n
> || || is norm (euclidean, max, etc).
>
> Can I find Mathematica function or package for such problem ?
>
> Thank you in advance,
> P. Kowalski
>